The Carolina Reaper even blows away the competition for world’s hottest pepper, with second place currently going to the Komodo Dragon Pepper, which has the capsaicin firepower to come up with around 1.4 million SHUs. Even other peppers regularly thought of as too hot for most people to handle make up just a fragment of that astronomical total – like the habanero, for example, which weighs in at a still-unbelievably-hot-but-somehow-not-even-close 350,000 Scoville heat units. And if that number sounds mind-boggling – it is.įor comparison, the jalapeno pepper that serves as chief tongue-pricker on so many stacks of nachos, pulls in a comparatively paltry 5,000 – 10,000 SHUs. On the Scoville scale, which measures chili pepper spiciness, the reaper clocks in no less than an astounding 2.2 million SHUs, or Scoville heat units. That’s right, the Carolina Reaper is officially certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s hottest pepper. Blue Oyster Cult may want us to believe that we shouldn’t fear the reaper – but we’re pretty sure they weren’t talking about the hot pepper.Īs the reigning world champion of hottest hot pepper, the chili delivers a devilish amount of heat to the tongue – with a spice so lethal it’d put that other black-robed reaper to shame. Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter. Just be careful out there: If the Carolina Reaper can potentially cause thunderclap headaches and dry heaving, imagine what a Dragon’s Breath could do.Ĭorrection: This story initially misidentified the pepper as a "California Reaper." Motherboard regrets the error. He said he participated in those games, and he did well,” Gunasekaran told me.
“I was discussing this case with one of my nurses. Other research has suggested ingesting hot peppers can be good for you.Įven medical professionals do it.
Plenty of people eat spicy food all the time and encounter no negative consequences, other than what you’d expect-burning mouth and throat, heartburn, watering eyes, “abdominal distress,” and so forth. Now, if you’re someone who enjoys eating hot peppers, you don’t need to worry. Whether genetics or other factors make some people susceptible to this kind of effect is unknown. Gunasekaran recommended that, if you start having acute head or chest pain after eating a particularly hot pepper, you should seek out urgent medical care. Read More: The Jalapeño Grinding Experiment That Nearly Caused the 'Sriracha Apocalypse' In rare cases, blood vessel constriction in the brain can cause a stroke, Gunasekaran added, although that hasn’t been documented in a case involving spicy pepper eating. The patient’s symptoms went away with the help of pain medication and other supportive care. It’s possible that, in this case, something similar happened in the patient’s brain arteries. “Two case reports showed that capsaicin could cause blood vessel narrowing in the heart,” he said.
Other small studies have suggested that capsaicin-which is basically what makes peppers spicy-can potentially cause blood vessels to spasm. So it’s hard to know exactly why eating the pepper would be associated with this effect. Gunasekaran explained that, as this is the first description of such a thing in the medical literature, there haven’t been any randomized controlled trials, which are the “gold standard” of clinical research. Lucky for him, RCVS typically resolves on its own. Doctors diagnosed him with reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS)-temporary artery narrowing in the brain that can bring on intense, sudden headaches. The patient finally was given a CT scan, which showed that several arteries in his brain had narrowed. “He underwent an extensive workup, and they couldn’t find the reason,” said Gunasekaran, a senior staff physician at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The man experienced dry heaving, severe neck pain, and bouts of crippling head pain, each lasting just a few seconds, over many days-so-called “thunderclap headaches.” He eventually went to the emergency room. Kulothungan Gunasekaran, one of the study authors, told me over the phone. “Immediately after eating the pepper, he started having pain,” Dr.
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